Marc Beckman, a founder of Designers Management Agency, a talent agency that has worked with labels like Proenza Schouler, Derek Lam, Christian Siriano and Sophie Theallet, said that deals with the biggest players in the fast-fashion sector now typically include cash payments of over $1 million. In 2007, many of those payments, particularly for Target’s Go International program for emerging designers, were reported to be around $250,000.

It's never been a secret that the thing that most attracted both young and established designers to these mass-market retail collaborations is, in addition to the exposure, the promise of a quick infusion of cash -- something up-and-coming talents, especially, so desperately need to grow the business. In an interesting twist, however, the Times also reports that some upstart designers are now seeing a mass-market collaboration as the mark that they've truly arrived -- a status symbol of sorts.

While that may seem backwards, on the one hand, being targeted for a collaboration with any major retailer does bestow upon a designer a certain mark of success -- the suggestion that a retail chain would want to be associated with said designer's name and work. In some ways, it could be argued that it's not all that different from any buyer showing interest in a designer's work.